Seed Phrase
A seed phrase — also called a recovery phrase or mnemonic — is a human-readable list of 12 or 24 words that encodes the entropy behind every private key in a wallet. Anyone with the seed phrase controls the wallet, on any device.
How it works
The wallet generates 128 or 256 bits of entropy, appends a checksum, and maps 11-bit chunks to words from the BIP-39 word list. The resulting phrase is fed through PBKDF2 to derive a 512-bit seed, which seeds a BIP-32 hierarchical-deterministic tree from which every account and address is deterministically derived. The words are the entire secret: nothing about the wallet needs to be backed up, because the tree is regenerated on restore.
Why it matters
Seed phrases solved backup and portability for early Bitcoin wallets, but they have a UX problem — 24 words of high-value secret material that must be transcribed by hand, stored somewhere, and typed into the wallet on recovery. The transcription and typing surface is where most self-custody losses happen: phishing sites that ask for the seed, photos on cloud-backed camera rolls, family members finding a paper backup, or house fires.
Related concepts
- Shamir Secret Sharing — Shamir Secret Sharing is a cryptographic scheme that splits a secret into N shards such that any T of them can reconstruct the secret, but fewer than T reveal nothing.
- Self-Custody — Self-custody is the practice of holding your own cryptographic keys rather than delegating custody to an exchange or custodian.
- Non-Custodial Wallet — A non-custodial wallet is a wallet in which the user, not a third party, holds the private keys.
- Hardware Wallet — A hardware wallet is a dedicated physical device that stores private keys in tamper-resistant hardware and signs transactions on-device.
Frequently asked questions
Is a seed phrase the same as a private key?
A seed phrase encodes the entropy from which private keys are derived. One seed can generate millions of keys.
Should I store my seed on cloud storage?
A raw seed on cloud is dangerous — a compromised cloud account grants full wallet access. Shamir sharding fixes this by ensuring no single shard reveals the seed.
What if I lose my seed phrase?
In a traditional wallet, the funds are lost. In Veyrnox, recovery uses Shamir shards, not a phrase.
In Veyrnox
Veyrnox does not show a seed phrase in the UI. The seed exists internally but is Shamir-sharded across device, personal cloud, and a KEK-protected server shard — see no seed phrase wallet. The user never transcribes 24 words and never types them into an app.